


no one has to know what we do (his hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room)

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Phil Coulson: damsel in distress, Pining, reverse slowburn, these two absolute idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 11:39:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4875433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fall into a pattern, one which involves hard, breathless post-mission sex in safe houses and bunks and (once, just once) the bathroom on the Quinjet. It's simple. It's what they both need. It works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no one has to know what we do (his hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room)

It's not about love.

The first time it happens, it's not about love. They're almost through a mission, holed up in a safe house for an hour or so until it's safe to leave, until Hunter and Mack come to extract them, and Skye's vibrating with so much nervous adrenaline she can't even get her gauntlets off.

"Ugh," she mutters, "ugh, why won't you-" and gives up on getting her gloves off, just tries to yank down the zip of her jacket, because it's a hot summer day out there and she feels  _disgusting_. But the zip is  _stuck_ and her gauntlets restrict her range of motion and everything is  _terrible_. And then Coulson is there, raising an eyebrow.

"Need some help?" he asks, and she blows out the breath she's been holding, nods reluctantly. He fiddles with the zip, slides it down, and when the cooler air hits her sweat-damp skin, all the frustration simmering under the surface turns abruptly into lust and desire and  _wanting_. She grabs Coulson by the back of the neck, slams her mouth up against his hard enough to bruise, and he makes a shocked noise.

"This isn't- I just-" she gets out, tries to pull back and can't because he's got his hands on her waist.

"You've got that post-mission thing," he guesses. "Burning under your skin, nervous tension, need to blow off some steam?"

"Yeah," she agrees. "Yeah, that's, yeah." Coulson leans in, brushes his mouth against her bare skin, grazes his teeth across her collarbone.

"Me too," he growls, "so  _let me help_." Skye doesn't need any more convincing; she pulls him in harder, gets his body flush against hers, throws her head back and lets him lick up the line of her throat. She makes a breathy noise which turns into a moan when he gets his mouth on hers, and he kisses back just as hard, biting at her lower lip.

" _Coulson_ ," she says, "Coulson, we don't have a lot of time," and he gets the picture, pushes her up against the wall, drags his hands up inside her singlet. The metal of his prosthetic buzzes against her senses and Skye suddenly  _wants_ even more. She grabs his hips, fumbles with his belt and button and fly, tugs his jeans open and slides her hand inside. Coulson growls again when she wraps her fingers around his cock (and god, her gloves are still on, she can only press her fingertips against him) and he pinches her nipple, hard enough to make her cry out. "Yeah," she says huskily, "yeah, get, god, that, Coulson, I want you  _in me_ ," and his breath stutters for a second before he bites, harder, under her jaw.

"You're going to have to get out of these leggings, then," he tells her, and the idea of having to get her boots and leggings off is just too hard, right now, so Skye just shoves her pants down to her knees, turns around, presses her face against the wall. Coulson makes another shocked noise, sounds like he's choking on his own breath, and Skye doesn't have time for this.

"Fucks  _sake_ , Coulson, just  _fuck me already_ ," she tells him, in a tone that's close to an order. He doesn't waste time; he grabs her ass, rubs his fingers across her and moans when he feels how wet she is, slides slowly into her until she can feel his cock filling her up. He begins to thrust, shallowly, and Skye bucks against him, reaches back and grabs his hip, sinks her nails in. " _Harder_ ," she orders, and Coulson groans, reaches up and tangles his fingers in her hair, makes a fist and  _pulls_ , and yeah, that's the edge of pain Skye wants to ride right now.

"Oh god," he breathes, "oh  _god_ ," and they're fucking  _loud_ , now, slamming against the wall with every thrust, and Skye could bring the house down in a quake, and she wants to  _come_  so badly. She gets her fingers against her clit, and she might still have her gauntlets on but she can still  _touch_ and  _vibrate_ , and Coulson tightens his grip on her hair, pulls her head back, hisses in her ear. "Is this what you need, Agent?" he demands, pushes into her hard and deep and fast, and it's enough to tip her over the edge. She screams into it, digs her nails harder into his hip and maybe she's leaving scratch marks on his skin but maybe it's getting him off too, because he cries out, goes still, holds her tight in a long moment of tension and pain-pleasure and lust and it's  _the best thing._ Skye doesn't know why she's never blown off steam post-mission before.

Then he's letting her go, smoothing down her hair where it's mussed and tangled and sweaty, pulling out of her and groaning softly at the stickiness left behind. Skye pulls back up her leggings, tries to catch her breath, presses her forehead against the wall for a moment. Coulson touches her shoulder, more cautiously than she thought he would after they've just fucked each other's brains out.

"You okay?" he asks, and she takes another deep breath, turns around, smiles at him.

"Yeah," she says, "yeah, I am, that was- that was what I needed, thanks."

"For both of us," he agrees, buttons up his jeans, and Skye wipes her fingers on her singlet. The comms line crackles live, and Hunter's voice sounds clear.

"Hey, team, we'll be there in ten, everything okay?"

"Sounds good," Coulson says, his voice cool and even and calm, "everything's fine."

Everything  _is_ fine, Skye thinks, and zips back up her jacket. She needs to shower; underneath her suit she smells like battle and sweat and sex. And Coulson has her nail marks on his skin. Everything's totally fine.

 

+

 

The next time Skye gets back off mission, she just has to give Coulson a  _look_ when she walks off the Quinjet, and he knocks on her bunk door just as she's stepping out of the shower. "Hey," she says, towelling her hair dry, "you wanna come in?" Coulson steps into her space, slides the door closed behind him, waits in silence for a moment.

"Mission go well?" he asks eventually, and Skye shrugs.

"Mack's a decent field partner. I didn't see too much combat."

"But enough," Coulson guesses, and Skye grins.

"Yeah," she says. "Enough," and drops the towel she's got wrapped around her. Coulson's gaze goes to her body immediately, and he drags his tongue over his lower lip. "Hey," she tells him. "Director. You're overdressed." That's enough to get him stripping off, and Skye watches appreciatively, because Coulson might not be a regular field agent anymore, but  _damn_.

"Better?" he asks, when he's down to  his boxers, and Skye can see that he's already hard. She's wetter just at the thought, the fact that Coulson is so turned on just by seeing her naked, just by the idea that they're going to fuck again.

"Better," she agrees, steps into his space, hooks her fingers over the waistband of his boxers and drags them down, settles on her knees in front of him and leans in to mouth kisses across his abs.

" _Skye_ ," Coulson groans, and she licks a long stripe up the underside of his cock, sucks him into her mouth. Coulson groans again, louder, lays a hand lightly on the back of her head, and that's not what Skye wants here, she doesn't want Coulson being gentle or tender or delicate with her, so she gives him just the edge of teeth, hums in satisfaction when he grabs her hair and pulls instead.

She keeps going, making him gasp and shudder and clench his fist in her hair, until he drags her back up to her feet, picks her up, pushes her down onto the bed. 

"God, Skye, I just, I want to fuck you so badly," he tells her, and Skye just arches up against him, bites at his shoulder.

"Why aren't you doing that already," she demands, and something in Coulson's expression flickers.

" _Cheeky_ ," he tells her, pushes into her hard and fast and relentless, and yeah, this is, this is what Skye's been waiting for since she got into combat in the field. This is her muscles being pushed and her body letting out all the tension it's been holding and Skye just wants  _more_. She stretches under Coulson, wraps her legs around his waist, shifts her weight so she can flip him and pin him down, and he grabs her wrists, pushes them above her head, holds them there with one cool metal hand.

"Oh  _god_ ," she manages, feels a hot burn of arousal at  _Coulson holding her down_ , and he grins sharp and dangerous, his eyes very dark.

"Uh huh," he agrees, presses his thumb a little harder into her wrist. "What were you saying?"

"Fuck me harder," Skye says, defiant, and Coulson gets his free hand between their bodies, presses his thumb against her clit, slams deeper into her. _  
_

"That harder?"

" _Harder_ , harder," she says, "I want to feel it, Coulson, I want- oh  _fuck me_ oh god I want- yeah, that's, oh  _fuck_."

"So  _demanding_ ," Coulson gets out. "Was the mission too easy? Didn't get all your feelings out?"

"Yeah, I'm using you to process my emotions," Skye replies between moans. "Team psych's out of the office, right." That makes Coulson growl, and Skye strains up to kiss him, trying to say without words that she's teasing. He kisses back, nips her lower lip, fucks her harder like she wants, and god, this is such a good coping mechanism for all her mission feelings.

 

+

 

The third time, it's still not about love. It's not even about sex, really. Skye has a desk in Coulson's office now. She tries to keep up to date with paperwork. The problem is, "paperwork" sometimes means "document everything HYDRA did with experimentation on Inhumans" and Skye's been working on it for two hours now and her bile's rising. Coulson's collectibles start to rattle, breaking the evening silence, and he looks up, startled.

"Skye," he says quietly. "Skye, are you okay?"

"No," she sighs, "no, I'm really not."

"Can I help?" he asks, and Skye considers the situation for a long moment.

"I need to get out of my head," she admits eventually, "I need- I don't know. I need to feel like my body's not a monster." Coulson makes a noise of acknowledgment, closes the folder he's reading.

"I..." he says, trails off, clears his throat and starts again. "I could help?" Skye looks over at him, raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah? How?"

"Come here," Coulson tells her, "and lock the door." Skye's intrigued enough to do it; she flicks the lock on the door, joins him behind his desk, leans back against it.

"What did you have in mind?" she asks, and Coulson gently touches his fingers to her bare knee, slides his hand up under her skirt. " _Oh_ ," she breathes, "oh,  _yeah_ ," because nothing gets her out of her head like this does. She boosts herself up to sit on his desk, lets Coulson move in a little closer between her legs.

"I like this dress," he tells her softly, and pushes the hem higher up her thighs. 

"Me too," Skye agrees, closes her eyes when Coulson leans in and starts pressing kisses in a line up the inside of her knee, her thigh, because he's being so  _gentle_ and it's great, it's what she needs, it's someone taking care of her body like she's beautiful and valuable and worth cherishing, not something to be experimented on, but it's also just so intimate, she can't watch. She leans back, instead, lets him keep going until his breath is hot against her through her underwear. He kisses the crease at the top of her thigh, leaves his mouth there.

"Is this okay?" he murmurs against her skin, and Skye lets out her breath, stares up at the ceiling.

"Yeah," she tells him. "Yeah, this is okay. This is good." Coulson smiles (and she feels his lips curve) and he pulls her underwear down until it's hanging hooked over one foot, pushes her legs wider apart, rubs his thumb slowly up the slickness of her folds and then immediately follows with his mouth, his tongue, sucking lightly at her clit. Skye immediately arches up into it, wants Coulson to never stop and also wants more. "God," she tells him, "you're good at this," and he pulls away, laughs a little, slowly slides one and then two fingers into her and crooks to hit her g-spot. He gets his mouth back on her clit, licks in long slow strokes that build the orgasm in her until Skye feels like she's going to fly apart with it. Things rattle, again, when Coulson pushes his fingers harder and deeper and  _sucks_ , and all Skye can do is shake and shudder and gasp through it until she feels limp and wrung-out and gloriously, gloriously centered in her body again.

"Thanks," Skye tells Coulson, when she can sit up, and he leans back, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Skye wants to kiss him, to find out what she tastes like on his mouth, but it seems like a boundary too far. They only kiss while they're fucking, not after, and this wasn't even about sex, this time round. She puts her hand briefly on his shoulder, instead, and bends over to pull back on her underwear. "Seriously, Coulson, that helped a lot. Thanks."

"Don't mention it," he says, very dry, and it's too early for Skye to go to bed, so she just goes back to her paperwork, in the end.

 

+

 

They fall into a pattern, one which involves hard, breathless post-mission sex in safe houses and bunks and (once, just once) the bathroom on the Quinjet. Coulson goes down on her sometimes, but never stretched out over his desk, and never again with such delicate, worshipful care. They don't stay the night in each other's space. It's simple. It's what they both need. It works.

"Are you okay?" Coulson asks her one evening, when she's just back from a three-day mission in Belarus. He drags his hand up her bare back, and it feels good, it feels  _so_ good, Skye just wants to curl into him, rest her head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. She rolls out of bed, pulls back on her sweats.

"Yeah," Skye agrees, "I'm fine. Good luck with all your administration, Director." Coulson rolls his eyes, gets the picture and gets up, leaves her alone in her bunk. He's left his shirt behind. She's tempted to pick it up and, she doesn't know, press her face into it, or pull it on. She leaves it on the floor instead.

 

+

 

The next mission, the safe house is tiny, just a little studio room with a bed in one corner, and they're stuck there overnight. They're both so exhausted that sex is out of the question; they just fall into the bed basically fully-clothed. It's a struggle for Skye to even get her Quake suit and gauntlets off before she falls asleep.

When she wakes up in the half light of early, early morning, though, Coulson is spooned up behind her, deliciously warm against her back, and Skye is so relaxed it's blissful. She rolls over, still mostly asleep, and Coulson gathers her up, pulls her in against his chest, brushes a kiss into her hair that Skye's pretty sure is all sleep-driven autopilot. She feels like she likes this too much. She goes back to sleep anyway, wraps herself into Coulson until they're entwined in each other.

She expects maybe that they'll fuck when they wake up again for real later. They don't. Coulson makes a surprised noise when he wakes up to find Skye tucked in against him, her hand splayed out over his ribs and her knee pressed between his legs, but he doesn't pull away. Instead he slides his hand down her side, pushes under her singlet to skim his fingers over the bare skin of her lower back and pull her in even closer. " _Skye_ ," he says, in barely even a whisper, and Skye can feel her arousal begin to heat her up, but it's not the simple adrenaline reaction she's used to. This is  _attraction_ , she thinks, this is- she wants to wake up like this every morning, with Coulson, wants to hear him say her name like that for the rest of her life. That's not what's going on here, she tells herself, that's not something to want. 

Her alarm goes off, and she gets out of bed quickly, starts getting dressed. "We've got to leave in fifteen," she tells Coulson, and he sits up, rubs his hand across his face. While he's getting dressed, while they're on route to the rendezvous, while they're on the Quinjet back, she catches him giving her looks she can't decipher. This is why they don't sleep together, Skye thinks, it just blurs the boundaries between them, and then she tries not to think about it at all.

 

+

 

It's kind of inevitable, really, that Skye would eventually get hurt on a mission. She's a field agent. It's what happens to field agents. And it's  _so_ not even a big deal - just a bullet that managed to get through the micro-kevlar of her suit and carve a long, shallow gouge across the cap of her shoulder. It bleeds a lot, but it's not so bad. She's been actually shot before. This is fine.

Coulson still goes white when he sees her in the Quinjet, and Skye hastily tries to reassure him. "I'm fine, honestly, Coulson, it's just a scratch."

"You're bleeding everywhere," he says, and she yanks her jacket open to show him.

"See? Just a scratch, it's okay, I'm okay. You can bandage it up if you like, stop it bleeding all over my super expensive superhero suit."

"Okay," Coulson agrees, "okay." He presses a gauze bandage to it, tapes it in place, and his mouth is working like he wants to say something. "I haven't cleaned this properly," he says, "go get Jemma to treat it when we're home," and Skye just nods. Coulson pauses, runs his fingertips from her shoulder up the side of her neck, opens his mouth and then closes it again. "Skye," he says finally, "I-"

"Landing in five," May tells them over the intercom from the cockpit, and Coulson pulls his hand away.

"Go see Simmons," he says, and Skye  _knows_ that wasn't what he was thinking at all.

She doesn't go see Jemma; she wants to shower and get the smell of gunpowder and blood out of her hair. After half an hour, Coulson comes and finds her in her bunk, raises a disapproving eyebrow. 

"Why did I know I'd find you here instead of the infirmary getting your wound treated like a normal person?" Coulson asks chidingly, but he's carrying a first aid kit, so Skye just shrugs, moves over on her bed for him to sit down. He applies the liquid stitches to the gash on her shoulder, gently rubs soothing gel into her bruises, and when he's done, Skye sighs, smiles, reaches out and grabs him by the front of his shirt.

"Now that's out of the way..." she murmurs, and Coulson doesn't move in closer like she's expecting.

"I think we should stop doing this," he says quietly instead, and Skye's so surprised she doesn't even let go.

"You- why?"

"It's not good agent practice," Coulson replies, avoids her eye contact. "Or a good look for me. I'm the Director. I shouldn't be-"

"Oh," she says. "Yeah, that- okay." Coulson reaches out, touches her cheek in a way that feels too tender for this moment. She doesn't want to be bitter, though, doesn't turn her face away like she feels the urge to, just lets him press his palm to her jaw, his fingers against her skin, and then he's standing up, gathering up the medkit, walking out.

His shirt is still on her floor where it'd landed weeks ago. She kicks it under her bed.

 

+

 

They still work together in the field, because Skye and Coulson make a good team and it was just  _sex_ , there's no reason for Skye to be upset about it. Coulson's just as respectful and competent and hilariously, stupidly goofy as he always is. He sneaks Twizzlers onto the Quinjet as they're flying out on missions, checks Skye's armor over before she goes out to face HYDRA and other Inhumans and another group that's maybe a  _really shadowy_ section of the US government or maybe someone else.

He still runs into the most dangerous situations as if he's also got superpowers, too, because Coulson is stupidly, stupidly heroic, and of course Skye's going to rescue him every time. She did it before she was a superhero. She's not going to stop now.

Coulson's under a pile of rubble, a bleeding cut just above his eyebrow (and what's with that, why always his eyebrow, Skye thinks fondly even as she's terrified for him) and she vibrates the stone out of the way, drops to her knees next to him.

"Coulson," she says, and she's trying to keep her voice level, she  _is_ , but it cracks anyway. "Coulson, god, please be alright."

"Skye," Coulson breathes, looking unfocused. " _Ow_."

"Oh god," she replies, "Phil, you're okay, god, let's get you out of here." She blinks back tears, wipes her face, takes a breath, sits back for a moment. "Trust you to get injured in the line of duty," she tells him, scoops him up with a grunt of effort. Coulson's out of it enough that he rests his head on her shoulder, lets her carry him out with one arm tucked under the crook of his knees and the other under his shoulders. "Seriously, Coulson, this damsel in distress thing you have going on is concerning," she says, trying to keep him awake because she might not have full medical training but she's pretty sure this is a concussion. "You've gotta stop running into things like you're actually a superhero here. I'm in love with you and all, but it's  _very frustrating_. I'm very frustrated."

"You are?" he says, sounding quietly shocked, and Skye frowns.

"Frustrated with you? Yeah," she replies, because that's obvious, right.

"No," he says, his head falling back on her shoulder, "the other thing."

"Oh," Skye realizes. "Oh. Well... yeah. I- clearly."

" _Oh_ ," Coulson says, frowns and then winces. "We should talk. About that."

"Sure," Skye agrees, "once you've been treated by Doctor Simmons."

Coulson  _does_ have a concussion; Simmons checks his vision, applies neat little butterfly stitches to the cut over his eyebrow, runs a scan to make sure nothing is broken. He falls asleep in the medbay bed afterwards, and Jemma reassures Skye that it's fine, that he just needs to rest. She's still worried. She can't get the image of Coulson limp under rubble out of her head.

Skye's still sitting in the plastic chair by his bed hours later, and god, is this just something they're going to be doing for each other forever, she wonders, will they trade off bedside vigils with jittering nerves and fearful hearts until they're both too old to join the fight. Coulson wakes up, finally, his fingers twitching where she has his hand clutched in hers, and she lets go, looks over at him full of nervous hope.

"Hi," he whispers, blinks a couple of times.

"Hey," she murmurs back. She wants to press a kiss to his knuckles, but she doesn't know where any of the boundaries are, now.

"So," Coulson says, sitting up a little straighter. "I think we've gone about this all wrong."

"I-" Skye replies, pauses. Coulson looks at her with infinite tenderness. " _Oh_ ," she realizes, and god, she's an idiot, she's such an idiot.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Skye, I've been in love with you for like a year. I stopped - _this_ \- because it wasn't even half of what I wanted. I thought it was unfair to both of us, to do it under what felt like false pretenses."

"Can we start over?" Skye asks, and Coulson gives her a brilliant smile.

"I'd like that," he tells her, "we can take it slow, if you like," and god,  _god_ , Skye has to kiss him, because there aren't any boundaries between them after all, and she can kiss him whenever she wants to. She wants to kiss him  _all the time._

It turns out it was about love. It was about love all along.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Me: "do I want to write a fic about Skoulson having a “this is just sex, right? oh yeah totally just about sex. RELIEVING TENSION. definitely juuuust sex no feelings going on here at all” situation or what (spoiler of course there are feelings going on these beautiful idiots)"
> 
> Me, later: "well this escalated"
> 
> I guess reverse slowburn can be a thing? 
> 
> follow me on tumblr if you want: notcaycepollard.tumblr.com


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